


The Bishop, The Knight

by livenudebigfoot



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Fighting Kink, Jealousy, M/M, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24578890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livenudebigfoot/pseuds/livenudebigfoot
Summary: Anthony's pretty good at chess too.
Relationships: Anthony Marconi/John Reese, Carl Elias & Anthony Marconi, Carl Elias/Harold Finch, Harold Finch & John Reese
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39
Collections: Exchange of Interest 2020





	The Bishop, The Knight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cognomen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/gifts).



They stand apart, like seconds at a duel. 

Anthony puts his back against the fence, apparently relaxed but ready to dart across the grass should Elias so much as frown. The guy in the suit, no less attuned to his own boss’s needs, leans a few yards further down the same fence and pretends to be unaffiliated and nonchalant. 

He’s not good at it, exactly. He’s got a bony, serious face and his movements are so controlled that any show of casualness is obviously just that: a show. But he’s got the suit, the clean-cut look. Anthony thinks people accept a lot from someone who looks like that. Provided it has the right face, the right haircut, they’ll accept the obvious robot in their midst.

This was never, Anthony thinks as he traces his own scar absently, an option for him.

Anthony’s still making up his own mind about this pair: the lanky guy in the suit, his soft-spoken, librarian-looking counterpart. _John and Harold,_ Carl calls them, like they’re neighbors, like they’re on a first name basis. Carl’s real comfortable with the idea of those two, tickled pink by their whole existence. A pair of free-range do-gooders wandering the city, leaving chaos and busted kneecaps in their wake. 

Anthony would feel better about the whole thing if this meeting wasn’t happening in the open like this. He likes to know his territory, to have his entrances and exits covered. But the other guys insisted on a public rendezvous, and Carl wanted to play chess, so. Here they are.

Anthony would feel better about the whole thing if they were scumbags, even a little bit. If they were slinging bath salts or smuggling guns on the side, that would make some kind of sense. As it is, there’s no agenda, no power play. No pattern to what they’re doing week-to-week, what they stand for, who their friends are.

It’s enough to make Anthony wary. But Carl’s got a soft heart and an affection for old stories. 

At a distance, Anthony squints to watch Carl’s next move. This kinda thing makes him antsy: not-quite-seeing. He also hates to hear half a conversation; he can’t stop himself from trying to put the pieces together.

He doesn’t feel much for the librarian, with his deliberate, quavery little voice and his busy pocket watch mind. But he does see something of Carl in him - the big ideas, the lofty principles - and Anthony can respect that. Especially since Carl does. But the other guy...

It doesn’t fit. The scrupulosity of the whole operation. If it is what it seems to be, if they really are throwing around more money than God and ripping New York City in half just to save a handful of little lives, this guy is not it. He looks like a wolf in banker’s clothing: quiet, composed, neatly dressed and ready to tear the throat out of the first person who looks at him funny or moves too suddenly.

Anthony’s itching to fight him. For a couple of reasons, he guesses. Because he knows he’d be good for it. Because he’s felt a little undermined since the guy in the suit saved Carl’s life. Because he’s quiet and smug and Anthony’s impulse is always to cut a guy like that off at the knees.

He guesses that’s something he and the guy in the suit have in common. 

Anthony moves along the fence to settle casually beside him. It’s irritating that, standing side-by-side, the guy’s height is even more pronounced. But he’s realer up close, Anthony finds. There’s a split on one of his knuckles, a fading bruise high on his temple. He has an ordinary kind of scent: a deliberately boring cologne, hair gel, and sweat from the noon sun.

He’s just a guy who bleeds and sweats and worries about his hair. Easier to imagine beating the shit out of him when he’s not such an urban legend. But somehow, no less exciting. He doesn’t look at Anthony exactly. It’s just a lift of the brow, a tiny frown like a cloud passing in front of the sun.

Anthony nudges him with one elbow. “You know what they’re talking about?”

His voice is impossibly soft, like a footfall in fine sand, when he answers, “I have an idea.”

Anthony drops his voice too, murmurs under his breath, “What’s he willing to give, your boss? For my boss’s help?”

The guy doesn’t look at Anthony when he answers, just stares straight ahead like he’s scanning some far-off horizon. “Nothing he can’t afford to lose.”

“Yeah.” Anthony rolls his shoulders. The bars of the fence push sun-warmed lines into his back. “But talking to my boss, that’ll shift your perspective. On what you can afford to lose.”

He flicks a glance sidelong, watches a muscle twitch in the guy’s jaw. Trying to be the bigger man, Anthony thinks. Too high and mighty to roll around in the dirt.

“But what am I telling you for?” Anthony continues. “You know how my boss is.”

His throat flexes, working, working. “Elias is a persuasive person,” he allows, cautiously. “But you don’t know my boss.”

Guess he doesn’t. He’s heard Carl talk about the guy, sure. Carl seems impressed and Carl doesn’t impress easy. Based on what Carl has to say, Anthony’s got a feel for the guy’s brain, his wardrobe, his chess game, but not so much for his street smarts or his ruthlessness. 

He watches the boss, the little librarian, sitting ramrod straight as he considers his next move. His hand hangs poised over the game, selecting, measuring, weighing. Across the table, Carl leans in with anticipation.

Anthony’s pretty good at chess too; not that it matters. 

Out the side of his mouth, he asks the guy in the suit, “Who do you think is winning?” 

A funny thing happens then to the guy in the suit. A kind of shift, like when your train stops suddenly and you have to shift all your weight so you don’t stumble in the aisle. His brow lifts. He takes a single, harsh breath. 

Anthony moves quick, jabs him hard with two fingers, right between the ribs. 

The guy in the suit seems to act almost without thinking. Without knowing what he’s doing, he’s got a hand closed viselike on Anthony’s wrist, another hand clamped under Anthony’s chin, forcing him up against the bars of the gate. And the guy’s teetering then. He’s weighing something in his mind: his boss’s expectations, the fragile state of their truce here. His eyes are weird. Crazy. Stormlike.

This guy wants to see Anthony’s blood as bad as Anthony wants to see his.

“John?”

The guy’s hand goes limp around Anthony’s throat.

The game is over.

Their bosses are crossing the grass to meet them, the librarian at a fast limp, Carl at a leisurely stroll. Carl’s wary; Anthony can see that. But nobody else could, he thinks. 

As the guy in the suit’s hands slink guiltily into his pockets, as he lets Anthony go, Anthony flashes Carl a grin so he knows it's alright. Carl doesn’t look relieved, exactly.

Neither does the librarian, who looks half like a teacher breaking up a scrap in the schoolyard, half like he’s afraid that he’s about to see someone get murdered. “John, are you…?”

“It’s fine,” the guy whispers. He allows himself a single, fleeting glance at Anthony and it’s almost apologetic. Embarrassed, maybe. “We’re fine.”

Carl catches up. “See, Harold? No harm done.” He pats him fondly on the arm, plucks a stray helicopter seed off the librarian’s shoulder and lets it flutter to the ground. “Just a little rough-housing between friends.”

The librarian twists the brim of his hat in his hands. He looks supremely doubtful.

“As always, Harold,” Carl continues, pushing the encounter along smoothly, “it’s been a pleasure doing business with you. You’ll have what you need within 24 hours, as agreed upon. And we really gotta start getting together socially. I’m tired of having to talk about intercepting stolen goods on your behalf just to watch you play chess.” 

There’s a struggle writ large on the librarian’s face before he pushes it down, becomes sort of beaky and serious and flat. “Perhaps a more informal gathering could be arranged. I’ll be in touch.” He tugs, very gently, on the guy in the suit’s sleeve. “Good day, Elias.”

“Have a good one, Harold.” Carl takes Anthony by the arm. Both pairs leave through the gate. They depart in opposite directions.

For a couple seconds, Anthony can hear the librarian whispering, soft and fast and angry. Tearing the guy in the suit a new asshole, he bets.

Carl leans into him a little. “Interesting call there, Anthony.”

Speaking of which. “Hope I didn’t make things difficult for you, boss.”

“You didn’t.” But he’s pinching a little through the sleeve of Anthony’s coat. “Any blows exchanged?”

“Just what you saw. And I got him in the ribs.” Anthony watches Carl’s face. “Isn’t that fair?”

“One of the things I love about you, Anthony, is your unerring sense of right and wrong.” Carl sighs deeply. “Did he say something to provoke you? That’s not like John.”

Anthony shakes his head. “Guy’s not much of a talker.” 

“No,” Carl concedes. “But neither are you.”

It’s true. Anthony’s never had all that much to say. He’s not shy; he hasn’t been since he was a kid. But talk becomes cheap after a while. There’s not a lot he could say that he wouldn’t rather just _do_. He’s not sure what made him talk to the guy in the suit so much, what made him try to dig at the guy with words. Maybe something about how he kept his eyes on that fake horizon and wouldn’t look at Anthony. “I’m charming, though,” Anthony says after a little while.

Carl squeezes his arm, gentler this time. “Of course you are.”

* * *

They’re having coffee.

Or, Carl’s having coffee. Harold drinks tea exclusively, or so Carl says. Anthony doesn’t remember asking. It’s information he’ll file away in the event that Carl asks him to poison the guy or something, but Carl hardly ever asks him to poison anybody, so Anthony’s not sure when that’d come up. He’s not even sure Carl was talking to him, it’s just something Carl murmured as he fixed his tie in the mirror.

Carl hardly ever wears a tie.

Anthony’s not even sure why they’re meeting. Usually he’s got some idea what sort of deal they’re looking to fix. He at least knows as much as Carl knows. This time, he’s out of the loop completely. 

Worst still, there might not be any deal, any reason behind it. 

It’s all pretty repulsive. 

It’s a rooftop restaurant, though. That excites Anthony. Much as he hates leaving Carl in an open space, but there’s an element of strategy to this and it’s kinda fun for Anthony, as a thought exercise.

Carl tells him what table he and Harold will be dining at ahead of time, so Anthony can study up. Will Harold the librarian do the same with his guy, or will they improvise? He won’t leave the guy in the suit at home. Not if the guy in the suit has anything to say about it. 

The night before the coffee date, Anthony sits up late with a Gripmaster flexing in his fist, and thinks hard about the position of the table for two on the rooftop. About the surrounding buildings. About lines of sight. About the direction of the wind. He identifies some likely vantage points.

He goes with Carl to the restaurant, rides all the way up there with him in the elevator just to make sure he gets there OK.

“Really, Anthony,” he says, polishing his glasses in the elevator, “I think I can pick up a brunch reservation by myself.”

“You’ll text me?” Anthony confirms. “When you’re ready to leave?”

Carl sighs deeply. “I will.”

They beat the other guys to the restaurant by at least 10 minutes. Anthony feels pretty good about that. Gives him time to get to his vantage point, his favorite one, the roof of the adjacent hotel. Not the one the guy in the suit would pick, Anthony figures, because there’s a pool up there and the guy in the suit likes privacy. This spot, with its businessmen discreetly yapping on their phones and its older ladies taking mid-morning swims, doesn’t fit the bill. But it’s nice and close to the restaurant, and it’s a couple floors higher. Anthony likes a bird’s eye view. 

Anthony dresses boring, drab enough that nobody would bother looking at him long enough to see his scar. He brings high-powered binoculars. So he’s a birdwatcher, today.

Carl said one time that that’s a thing Harold does. Like, as a hobby.

Fuckin’ boring.

Down in the restaurant, things are going pretty much to plan. Harold shows up a couple minutes earlier than he’s supposed to, and Anthony wonders if he’s surprised that Carl beat him there. He’s dressed nice, a light-colored suit. When Carl rises to shake his hand, he also pulls out Harold’s chair for him. 

Anthony’s guys are where they’re supposed to be. Riva and Pagano - the guys Anthony tapped for the job - do a good-enough job of pretending they’re not watching Carl while they share a quiet breakfast three tables away. Anthony’s happy with his picks there. They’re not brilliant thinkers, these guys, but they’re sharp enough to shut up and do what they’re told, and they’re small-time enough that Carl won’t necessarily recognize them. 

Not the worst thing in the world if he does. Anthony doesn’t mind the idea of Carl knowing he has backup, even if it’s not backup he asked for. It’s more for Anthony’s peace of mind.

That, and scaring the shit out of the guy in the suit.

He’s not in the restaurant. Not anywhere Anthony can see, anyway. And he was prepared to spot the guy sitting at a table of his own or even openly standing by Harold’s chair like a valet or a faithful dog. Anthony also considered the idea that this big, Frankenstein-looking son of a bitch might be looming around the place dressed like a waiter. He’s not, though, Anthony finds. 

They’re not _always_ together, Anthony reminds himself. But the guy in the suit doesn’t trust Carl to play nice with his boss. Unless he has someplace real important to be, he’ll be there, just like Anthony is. 

Down a few floors below, Harold reaches across the table to point out something on Carl’s menu.

Anthony checks his vantage points. The other adjacent rooftop, the one on the other side of the restaurant, is way too obvious. It’s some kind of trendy apartment complex and the roofs are just about even with each other. Two people, one on each roof, could play catch with each other if they wanted. The guy in the suit would be way too obvious. And as it is, the only guy on that roof is blonde, sunbathing, dead to the world.

He thought the roof across the street had potential. Like the hotel, it’s got height to it. There’s a Nordstrom Rack on the ground floor, office space above. Kind of a barrier for entry, but if you could get up there - and the guy in the suit could - you probably wouldn’t be disturbed. But there’s nobody.

The spot he can’t get out of his head is the parking garage across the street and two buildings over. It’s tall, real tall. It’s got a good line of sight on the restaurant, provided you can see almost a block away. Anybody can go in, which makes it easy. But it also makes it risky, ‘cause that means interruptions. It’s a bad spot, Anthony thinks.

But it’s east of the restaurant, Anthony thinks, which would put the mid-morning sun at your back. And the wind is blowing in his face, which means that if you were to shoot towards the restaurant from the roof of the parking garage, the wind would be with you.

Anthony fiddles with the knobs and dials on the binoculars, makes his vision keen. He looks towards the parking garage.

There’s a tiny dark figure leaning over the edge.

Hard to be sure, but Anthony thinks they might have a sniper rifle.

Anthony puts his binoculars away. He texts Riva and Pagano, tells them he’s not playing mother bird anymore, that they gotta be ready to step in on their own. He leaves the hotel roof. 

_Would the guy in the suit take a shot at Carl?_ Anthony wonders as he rides the elevator to the ground floor. It’s an interesting question. All the evidence Anthony has to hand says no. The guy in the suit shoots people, sure, but he doesn’t shoot to kill. There’s a lot of guys with shattered patellas who could attest to that. Most of the guys Anthony’s shot can’t attest to shit. 

And besides, Anthony thinks as he jogs across the street, ignoring the screeching breaks and bellowing horns in his wake, this guy likes Carl in spite of himself. Doesn’t trust Carl, but likes him. Might throw him in jail, but sniping him from two buildings away would be rude. 

Even if he just meant to wing Carl, Anthony adds as he breaks into a run, dodging pedestrians as he dashes up the sidewalk, even if he just meant to clip him, this guy wouldn’t fire into a restaurant full of people. It’s not like he could guarantee the bullet would stop in Carl’s knee or his shoulder. It’d go into the nice old lady sitting behind Carl at the next table. It’d go into a waiter. This guy would never forgive himself. Or at least, his boss would never forgive him. And he wouldn’t risk that. 

_Unless._

Unless, Anthony guesses as he slips under the barrier and into the dim, musty garage, it was life or death for this guy. Unless he felt like he had to. Anthony can’t know what this guy believes in, not for sure. He can’t know what drives him. He can’t know what he’d do to Carl if he thought somebody’s life was on the line.

Anthony’s boots slap loud on the pavement and echo off the concrete ceiling.

In the elevator, he bounces foot to foot, clenches and unclenches his fists. Concerned, of course. Thinking about security. But excited, too. He can’t help that. 

He bursts out onto the rooftop level, into brightness and fresh air. Anthony knows where to look and the guy’s not hard to see. He’s crouched in the corner, his sniper rifle balanced on the lip of the barrier, pressed so close he practically melts into the shadow.

Anthony slows his pace to a determined prowl. 

As he creeps up behind, Anthony gives the situation a little thought. This happens, always, when he’s sneaking up on a guy. There’s a lot of leeway in these moments, a lot of ways the situation could shake out. ‘Cause he could end the guy in the suit right here, he knows. If he's quiet enough. Anthony could take the knife he’s got in his boot and jab it in the guy in the suit’s throat, slice deep. He’s got wire, too, coiled in the inside pocket of his jacket. That’s better, he thinks to himself. Cleaner. Do it right now, get it over with.

And Carl would be unhappy with him, yeah, but Anthony and Carl go way back and the guy in the suit is just a guy, at the end of the day. They’d move past it. They’ve moved past worse.

Screw things up with Carl and Harold, of course. That’d be a problem, an extra complication. Or a bonus, depending on how you look at it. 

_And then what?_ That’s the question: and then what? When Anthony tightens the wire around his throat, when the man in the suit kicks out and kicks out and lies still, will Anthony feel some measure of satisfaction?

He’s not so sure about that. The guy in the suit and him, they’ve been sizing each other up for a good long while. Looking for the sore spot, the soft spot, the tells. It wouldn’t feel good to just take him out from behind. Kind of an anticlimax, Anthony thinks.

That’s why, when he finally does creep up on the guy in the suit, what Anthony does is kick him in the back. 

The guy lurches forward with a grunt, smacks his face into the concrete barrier. For a couple seconds, he grapples with his gun, trying not to drop it over the edge. Good that he doesn’t drop it, Anthony thinks. Pretty sure a sniper rifle falling from the sky might lead to an interruption. But it would’ve been pretty funny if he had.

“Like what you see?” Anthony asks him.

The guy scowls over his shoulder at Anthony, a shallow scrape bleeding bright over one eye. He doesn’t look like he wants to kill Anthony. He looks like he wants to kick his ass. Subtle distinction.

Anthony balls up his fists.

He swings the sniper rifle like a bat, clips Anthony hard across the face and while he’s still clutching his face, the guy lunges at him, body slams him to the asphalt. 

All the air gets crushed out of Anthony with a horrible, broken wheeze. He lies there, gurgling and struggling for air, for an overlong second while the guy lays into his face once, hard. He sits back then, on his heels. He’s panting, teeth bared. Like he’s won. Like he thinks he’s won. 

Anthony strikes him hard in the diaphragm, doubles him over.

The thing about the guy in the suit, Anthony finds, is that he rolls over real easy. It’s maybe a strategy on his part, like he thinks if he’s on his back he can get his legs involved and then it’s all over for Anthony, except Anthony gets a handful of his silvery hair, crispy with hair gel, and pins his head to the ground so the guy can’t move while Anthony hits him, so _fuck his strategy_.

Anthony hits him once, twice, feels what might be the guy’s nose snapping under his fist, and then the guy squeezes him hard by the balls and _fuck him but for different reasons_. Anthony goes over with an airless grunt. The guy slams him onto the ground again, pins him by the wrists.

Anthony tries to imagine doing this to the other guy, almost laughs. Doesn’t have the wingspan for that, he’s pretty sure. He draws his leg up, drives his knee into the guy’s balls. He snarls, but rolls over, off of Anthony, to lie panting on the pavement beside him.

Anthony’s instinct is to pursue him, to kick him while he’s down, but he just doesn’t have the strength. He just lies there staring into the bright blue sky, baking in the sun, waiting for the breath to come back to him. Anthony opens his mouth but finds it’s full of blood. He spits. “Outta curiosity,” he asks, “why didn’t you just shoot me?”

The guy coughs once, twice. “It’s not even loaded.” His voice sounds congested, gummy. Broken nose, maybe. “I was just using the scope.”

Anthony laughs, raspy and wet. “You know those things come off, right?”

“Had to put it all together for a...thing, later.” Anthony rolls a little on the hot asphalt, turns to face him. The guy in the suit is lying on his side, in the fetal position, staring at him. His eyes are uncomfortably blue and earnest. “I just needed to look after my boss. You understand.”

Unfortunately, Anthony does.

“I wouldn’t’ve hurt Elias. He’s…” The guy pauses, considers his words. “I don’t know if he’s a good man. I just don’t want to kill him.”

“Yet.”

“Yet,” the guy agrees. “Harold’s a good person. If he...”

“If my boss doesn’t bring your boss home before curfew and fuckin’ unsullied, you’ll kill him, is that it?” Anthony sits up with a groan, picks himself off the ground piece by piece. He is, he thinks, feeling his shoulder roll and pop, a little old to be picking fights in parking lots. “This isn’t prom.”

The guy’s still on the ground. He flops onto his back with a soft, suppressed grunt and stares deep into the clear sky. “I just want to keep him safe,” he says, almost to no one. “That’s my job.”

Anthony taps his boot on the guy’s shoulder, wiping grit onto his fancy suit. “You gotta get up,” he tells him. “You’re gonna fry like an egg.”

Begrudgingly, he does get up. He picks his sniper rifle up too, stows it in a bag that looks like it’s probably supposed to be for a tennis racket, and slings it over his shoulder.

They ride the elevator down together. Silently. Anthony glances at him sidelong once, catches him swiping the blood from his nose.

When they reach the ground floor, they depart in opposite directions. 

* * *

They’re getting a hotel. Carl makes an announcement out of it, which feels strange because it’s just the two of them at the table, just the two of them drinking coffee when Carl makes his weird little proclamation. They’re getting a hotel.

Anthony taps his spoon very lightly against the edge of the mug. “Uh huh, boss?” 

“I won’t try to stop you, Anthony,” Carl says. He’s holding his coffee cup like a prop, like he needs something to do with his hands. “But obviously, I need my privacy.”

“Of course you do, boss.”

“So I thought...an adjoining suite. Might help. If that’s what you need.”

It’s not the worst idea. Visibility’s bad, of course, but that’s the whole point. It puts Anthony close by. It puts Anthony in control from the safehouse to the very door of the hotel suite and back again. Maybe do a walkthrough, if he gets there early enough. He’s not worried about the librarian, so as long as they keep the blinds closed, the curtains, whatever…

Anthony’s overheard worse.

Into his coffee, he says, “If that’s what you want, boss.”

“It’s _not_ what I want,” Carl says, very firmly. “But you have a point. We have enemies. Our friends have enemies. It’s a dangerous meeting to take. And I don’t mind the backup, Anthony,” he says. “I really don’t.”

“So long as you don’t mind.”

And that’s how Anthony finds himself sitting on the edge of a hotel bed, staring into the glossy, dark mirror of the TV screen, and pointedly not staring at the closed door beside it.

The librarian beat them to it this time, which is annoying. He’s already sitting on the bed, prim and self-satisfied and visibly off-put by Anthony’s presence. His gangly, pain-in-the-ass counterpart is nowhere in sight. Good. Anthony performs a quick, silent sweep of the suite. He finds what he expects to find. A neatly made bed. A bathroom, scrubbed clean and gleaming white. Blackout curtains, which the librarian has already drawn shut. As a last resort, Anthony inspects the appliances, the vents.

“If you’re concerned about bugging,” the librarian says in his dry, crisp little voice, “don’t be.”

He sounds very sure of himself. Carl looks at him with creased, fond eyes. 

Anthony takes his leave.

And now he’s here, trying to find the balance between listening for his boss and not listening for his boss.

Not that there’s anything to hear. At first he was aware of the soft ebb and flow of their voices, heavily muffled and impossible to understand. Now it’s just quiet.

Anthony sprawls backward on the bed. Should’ve just encouraged Carl to fuck the guy in the privacy of their own safehouse. It’s not like he doesn’t know where it is. At least then, they would’ve been at home. Here, Anthony doesn’t know what to do with himself.

This is punishment, he thinks.

Then he hears it. Three knocks on the door: firm, gentle, efficient. 

Anthony soft-draws his gun, slides it out of the holster but doesn’t quite lift and aim. He wonders to himself who might know they’re here, who might want to take advantage, who would knock. He waits for someone to yell housekeeping.

No one yells housekeeping. 

He listens hard. He doesn’t hear another knock. But when he looks, he can see the shadow at the bottom of the door, the shape of someone waiting. 

Anthony draws his gun the rest of the way.

The thick hotel carpet swallows up his footsteps as he crosses the room. He leans beside the door, to wait for shots fired, splintered wood, a hole through the door into where his stomach ought to be.

That doesn’t happen.

Another knock. Just one. Guy's a minimalist. 

The peephole is the obvious choice, but Anthony's thinking about the guy he bagged one time by knocking on his hotel room door, just like this. Waited until he was pretty sure the guy was looking and fired through the peephole. Won't be him.

Anthony risks looking. 

Out in the hall, the guy in the suit is throwing him soft, solemn stares. He looks like he cleaned up OK. There's a shiner, a scabbed-up scrape on one cheekbone. His nose is looking puffy.

Anthony tucks the gun into the back of his jeans, draws the deadbolt open and leans out the door, real polite. “Wrong room, pal.”

“I knew you’d be here,” he says. He should sound smug, but somehow he doesn’t. He just sounds deeply tired. 

"Didn't I break your nose?"

He shakes his head. "Just made it bleed. May I come in?”

 _May he. Fuck off._ “Yeah, sure, why not," Anthony steps back. "Could use some company.”

Guy steps in slow and cautious. Anthony struggles to place what the wary glances, the fearful-vicious body language remind him of before he clocks it: the dog. 

It was maybe the year after he and Carl and Bruce ditched the boys' home, or the year after that. Lean and hungry times, but exhilaratingly free. Carl lured a street dog into their apartment, this mangy thing, eaten alive by fleas. Anthony remembers watching Carl feed that animal tiny scraps of food from his own hand, watching the way that thing trembled and shook, teeth bared, snarling between bites. How it hated him and feared him and loved him. 

That thing stuck to Carl for the rest of its short life, hated anybody who came close. 

The similarities weren't lost on Anthony. 

The door shuts, locks with a click, and suddenly the air gets tight. They're locked in together now. Feels like the seconds before a cage match. Electric.

“You wanna break into the minibar?" Anthony asks. "I will if you will.”

The guy shakes his head. “I’m working.”

“Doesn’t seem that way. Kinda seems like if you were working, you and him would’ve shown up together.”

He pauses, struggles for a moment. “He shook me off in the crowd,” he admits. “But I found him again.”

“Oh, yeah?” 

The guy nods. “Tracker. In his glasses. Do you ever…?”

Anthony’s never had to. They got their ways of getting in touch, him and Carl. Their contingencies, their strategies. For all that he feels like he has to watch over Carl, he’s never felt like he has to track him down. Like he didn’t want to be found.

“Harold’s private,” the guy says, as though that explains it.

Wordlessly, Anthony cracks open the mini bar. He takes out two tiny bottles of whiskey, tosses one to the man in the suit who snatches it out of the air like he doesn’t know he’s doing it. Like it’s instinct. He glances down at the label, back up at Anthony.

“Should you?” he asks. “You’re working, aren’t you?”

“I’m always working,” Anthony answers. “You know how that is?”

The guy nods, slow and terrible. But not, Anthony thinks, resentful.

“You learn to pick your moments,” Anthony tells him. “Or you lose it.”

“It’s hard,” the guy muses as he unscrews the top on his tiny bottle of whiskey. “To trust that the moment you’ve picked is...the right one.”

“Oh, sure,” Anthony says. “But you checked the place out.” _If he’s any good, he checked the place out._ “You know nothing’s gonna happen in that room. They’re just gonna fuck each other. That’s it.”

The guy winces.

“You precious about that kinda thing?”

He downs the whiskey as one slow shot, grimaces. “I didn’t even like it when they were just playing chess.”

Hard to disagree with that. Anthony cracks into his own whiskey. “How long you know your guy?” 

He considers, really has to think about it. “Four years,” he says at last. “Almost four.”

“Jesus. You barely know the guy.”

Wistfully, he adds, “Feels like longer."

“Carl and I go way back. Since we were kids. Not a lot I won’t do for him.” He hesitates a little. He speaks treason. “But I don't know if I stand by this.”

The guy nods once, understands immediately.

“Guys like us aren’t made for this kinda thing. This half-friendly, half-killing each other cold war shit. We don’t meet up for chess or fucking brunch or…” Or. 

“I think we’d handle it differently," the guy rasps.

“If it were up to you or me, we’d be kicking each other’s asses right now.”

The sidelong glance Anthony shoots him is a joke, almost, a sly little wink, a _wouldn’t it be funny if we..._ , but the guy in the suit is looking back at him and there’s this dark heat behind his eyes, this funny, feral glow. He's holding his miniature bottle of whiskey between two fingers by the cap and Anthony has this idea that in his hands it could become the world’s tiniest, deadliest shiv. 

Casually, Anthony cracks one knuckle.

Anthony lunges but the guy's ready for him, catches all his weight and slams him flat on the mattress, straddles him. Anthony takes a swing at him but the guy catches him under his jaw - not _hits_ , but _catches_ \- and pins him flat like that, leaning back so Anthony's fists can't quite reach that razor sharp jawline.

He smiles a little. His smile is weird, almost half-formed. Like he doesn't quite know how. "Short arms," he remarks almost absently, running a smooth, short nail over Anthony's pulse. "Did I misunderstand?"

Impulsively, Anthony seizes him by the belt and he hears the guy's breath quicken, go jagged. He puts steady, teasing pressure on Anthony's throat, cutting off the barest edge of his air. It provides a weird kind of focus as Anthony unbuckles his belt, yanks it free, wraps it once, twice, three times around his hand.

He's not sure if punching the guy in the suit in the stomach comes as a surprise. He just knows the guy bends double, collapses around his fist. He just knows it gives him the opportunity he needs to flip the guy onto his back, take control.

"No," Anthony says as he climbs onto the guy, as he rips open his stupid, crisp button-up. "No, you didn't misunderstand."

The guy's not bad under his shirt. He's got gnarled, working muscle, not the showy gym muscle Anthony expected. Real stuff. Anthony grazes a curious palm over his chest, his ribs, his hard stomach. He feels the ripples and dips of scar tissue. 

So he's not exactly destroying an oil painting here. 

Anthony pulls back, slams his belted fist into the guy's gut, strikes again and again and again, with both hands like he's beating the punching bag at the gym until the seams burst. He paints the guy's chest and ribs with bruises and welts.

Almost without Anthony's knowledge, without his permission, the guy's big, broad hand comes up to rest at the base of Anthony's throat to press and press and press. His teeth are bared.

They're both hard.

Anthony sees stars as the air goes thin, as his world narrows down to this single point, as he takes one of the guy's nipples between his forefinger and thumb and twists like he means to tear it off.

The guy socks Anthony in the jaw. Setting boundaries. Fair enough, Anthony guesses, but of course he has to push back. Anthony's on him again, rolls the guy on his stomach with his arm pinned back. Anthony shoves his shirt up, pulls his pants down.

Turns out the guy in the suit prefers boxers. Not what Anthony would have guessed, although he also hasn’t thought about it. He yanks them down around his knees, so hard he hears elastic snap. 

Could fuck him in the ass right now, Anthony thinks to himself. That’s an option on the table. Could unfurl the belt in his hand and whip his ass until it bleeds. Could buckle the belt around his neck and show him a thing or two about choking.

Feels like a lot so soon, though. 

Beneath him, the guy shifts, resettles. “What the hell are you waiting for?” he snarls into an overstuffed hotel pillow.

So that’s an invitation, if Anthony was waiting for one.

Anthony unfurls the belt, buckles the guy's arms to his sides. Makes things easy on himself. As he undoes the fly on his jeans, Anthony spits in his palm, contemplates how easy he wants to make this.

Not _too_ easy, he knows.

He gets his cock out, gets startled by how hard he is as he slicks himself up. He wonders if he knew he wanted to do this when he got up this morning. He wonders if this is just another way to fight this guy. 

Anthony slides in, no prep.

Not _too_ easy.

The guy takes it pretty well, which is annoying. He's done this before. He might not even be too ashamed of it. He tilts his hips right, rocks back into Anthony the little bit he can. He might've liked it if the guy struggled, if he screamed in pain.

Anthony decides to make him.

Anthony settles around the guy, flat against his back, and fucks him slow. Painful slow. Nudges his legs apart so he can't help but spread wide and take it. He closes his right hand around the guy's dick and jerks it hard, rough, painfully tight. His left hand goes to the guy's nipples again and starts pinching and tugging, hard.

Even muffled by the pillow, the guy moans loud. Anthony isn't quite sure if the nipple stuff is a thing he hates or a thing he likes too much, but he doesn't care so much. He takes the guy's left nipple between his middle and forefinger and presses his thumbnail into it hard and the guy writhes like he means to get away, but he can't. He can't. 

"Your fuckin' boss can hear you, I bet," Anthony snarls into his ear. 

The guy moans low and guttural, comes all over Anthony's hand, collapses limp and panting to the bed.

Anthony could come right now, sure, but he makes a point of holding out and holding back so he can keep fucking the guy five, ten minutes after he's done, keep this guy riding his dick until it hurts. He wants this guy to feel him tomorrow, the next day, into next week. He wants that prissy little librarian to notice his big, bad bodyguard is walking funny.

He braces his forearm on the mattress for leverage and the guy sinks teeth into Anthony's arm, hard and unrelenting, like a fucking bear trap.

Somehow that's what makes him come.

They lay like that a while, sticky and raw and panting. Anthony pillows his head on the guy's back, feels his breath return to normal. The guy takes his teeth out of Anthony's arm. Anthony pulls out.

Anthony does him the courtesy of undoing the belt before he gets up to take a piss. 

When he comes back out of the bathroom, the guy's sitting up, rubbing the deep red welts on his arms. "Another drink?" he asks.

Hard to deny him under the circumstances. Anthony hits the minibar on his way back to bed.

They sit on the edge of the bed, drinking and watching each other's reflections in the TV.

"You OK?" Anthony asks.

The guy cracks his neck in reply.

They sit silent, nursing whiskey, attuned to the inner life of the hotel: the hum of the air conditioner, the chatter of a faraway TV, the sound of running water from the room next door. A buffer, Anthony guesses, to keep the outside world out or the inside world in. Or they're taking a shower.

The guy in the suit - John - asks solemn and deadpan, "How do you think it's going over there?"

Whiskey burns the inside of Anthony's nose when he laughs.


End file.
